The Aesthetics of Democratic Life-Forms
International Graduate Conference
Goethe-University Frankfurt
September 21–23, 2023
Since its birth at the end of the 18th century, modern democracy has proved to be more than a system of government: forms of governance and ways of living dovetail as to formulate its structural complexity. Already in classical antiquity, politicians and thinkers observed the profound influence of the self-governing collective in shaping individual sensibilities; the modern democratic mechanism of representation increases and foreground such structural complexity, seeing the self-actualization of the demos and selection of political representatives via aesthetic media and strategies. Indeed, the aesthetic dimensions reveal modern democracies to be life-forms. That is, democracies reach deep into the fabric of life, cultivating certain modes of conduct, forms of communication, artistic practices, individual as well as collective forms of experience – all of which intertwine and shape the lives of those involved.
The international graduate conference The Aesthetics of Democratic Life-Forms thus seeks to understand aesthetics not as a disparate, hostile sphere in relation to democracy – an assumption which posits the aestheticization of politics to be inherently anti-democratic –, nor as a structurally analogous foil for democratic politics. Rather, this conference hopes to shed light on how aesthetic practices and phenomena provide insight into democratic life-forms, as well as how political practices and discussions implicate modes of conduct whose aesthetic dimensions lend themselves to productive analysis.
This call for abstracts invites contributions engaging with the topic via:
(1) theoretical concepts leading double aesthetic-political lives (representation, form, style, theatricality, realism, affect, experience, criticism, and others)
(2) analyses of object-side phenomena (literary texts, artworks, public space, fashion trends, social media, pop culture, climate movements, hustle- and scam culture, and others)
(3) insights from individual theoretical discourses (post-colonialism, phenomenology, feminism, ecocriticism,legal theories, theories of judgment, theories of the Anthropocene, biopolitics, and others) as well as schools of thought (Wittgenstein and Cavell, Marxism, Critical Theory, Pragmatism, Radical Democracy, and others).